


There and Back Again

by Lyssandra_Med



Series: One-Shot [82]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Love, Polyamory, Smut, Smut and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:22:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28841580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssandra_Med/pseuds/Lyssandra_Med
Summary: The story ends, the story continues. Maxine watches from the corners, while Max lives her life.
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price, Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Victoria Chase, Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Victoria Chase/Chloe Price, Victoria Chase/Chloe Price
Series: One-Shot [82]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1429282
Comments: 7
Kudos: 26





	There and Back Again

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Raven_Tonks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raven_Tonks/gifts).



> unedited  
> this OT3 has too few works on here

Slow, dull mornings. Wild, unchecked nights. A strong arm wrapped tightly around her waist, a nose pressed against her skin. Chloe’s leg hitched up over her hip, loose knee resting and a foot curled underneath the sleeping bulk of Max’s thigh, her fingers twitching amid lively dreams.

Max was awake and alive; she was _breathing._ Somewhere in Seattle another person was waking, though Max always wondered if he should be. He had managed to do so much harm and to so many; there were far more cases than she’d initially assumed. The choice was out of her hands. Even if she’d held onto that power, that hate and harm and hurt, she’d ignore it. Hate could only power her for so long. Harm was a double-edged sword. Hurt was an echo, and her mind had long scarred over.

Chloe rumbled beside her, trying to talk to her dreams and purring instead. Her lips were pressed to Max’s neck, and she shifted, burrowed further into the bed. Max couldn’t get up from this position without moving Chloe, waking the girl and turning her away. She’d always been a light sleeper and the events of the past few months had only served to make that worse. The blankets were at the foot of the bed, and she was cold, a little, but it certainly wasn’t worth the effort.

There was a possibility that Joyce would see them when she woke up for work, a chance that she’d come to check in on her daughter and make sure she wasn’t dead. That her deja-vu coming off a nightmare was wrong, and the stark relief of a white hospital bed against blue-pink hair had no basis in reality.

False dreams and parental anxiety.

David could also end up seeing them pressed up against one another. He might fume for a moment at his stepdaughter, at her friend lazing in bed, but _hopefully,_ he wouldn’t pull that pin. The hours of therapy were beginning to help despite his reluctance to talk about it, and the faraway look in his eyes when he returned. The overpowering, absolute _need_ for control had died down as the weeks passed on, and while it still flared up at irrational moments, he was doing his best to actively control it.

The threat of divorce and an intervention staged by his employers, coworkers, and remaining family that he’d left behind was a powerful motivator in his life, or so Max was led to believe. Not that Chloe - _nor herself_ \- was ready to forgive him his transgressions.

She was led to believe a lot, lately. Think too, thought and wonder. Memories and worries all melded into one, fears mixed with lying anxiety. She thought of love, and the power to change. To change oneself, their surroundings, and those they held some level of intimacy with. But she also thought of the Storm, of Hell Week, of that fact that she had no one to turn to except the woman sleeping deep against her.

She tried not to think about it. Thinking brought split memories and pain. It was hard, though, and she made no bones about that. She flinched at trains rumbling by and loud noises, shirked away from barking dogs and the subtle click of a shutter. 

She knew, realistically, that she was safe, warm, and comfortable. She was here with someone she loved, loved beyond the pure adrenaline that had filled her veins for a week. She loved them more than the terror of unplanned reunions and danger nipping at her heels. She loved in soft tones, whispered pleas of fealty, and gentle commiseration. 

But she was crumbling. The stare of Other-Max - _or Maxine, as Chloe had dubbed her_ \- only proved it; the face was snarling, jagged and red with blood. She would lean forward, lean back, again and again, forever on the edge of just tipping off of Chloe’s desk.

Max was crumbling, and she wasn’t entirely sure what to do about it despite all the thinking that she did.

\---

The afternoon was a stretched out occurrence. _Each_ afternoon was. Every afternoon without rain, thunder, or the threat of a building being ripped from its foundations and flung across the void. Blackwell was on break for both the holidays and a state-sponsored inspection. Too much, too little, all of it too late. October’s madness hadn’t ripped the mask off the monster as Max had anticipated, and now it simply dragged on. 

Oregon wasn’t happy, the trustees weren’t pleased, and more than a few government agencies with alphabet soup names were furious. Chloe had a theory on each of their involvement, and Max let her talk and talk whenever the topic came up. Most of her ideas came from Justin or Trevor, the posse of skaters having too much time on their hands and too much leaf on the brain. Max listened each time, though, because every moment that she didn’t was a moment she might never get back. This Chloe hadn’t lived through all that death and destruction; this Chloe was still healing. 

This Chloe deserved better than an errant ear and a passing glance. She deserved to remain healthy and whole, and when it seemed that might snap - _on the day that Rachel was pulled from her grave, Max unable to tell the authorities anything without implicating herself in a roundabout way that undoubtedly led to probes in her mind and a lockup somewhere south of Area Fifty-One_ \- Chloe wept, and Max remained at her side. She cried with her.

Maxine laughed and screamed voicelessly at them both.

\---

Life was hard work.

A one year anniversary was a nice enough treat for all the effort. It was the start of something new. _Unique._ It was, to Max, the recognition of a year - _three hundred sixty-five days, plus or minus depending on the year, as Warren chimed in (unwanted even if he was just trying to be helpful)_ \- plus the promise of many, many more, all for however long the love held out. This had _changed._

Somewhat.

Chloe was in a better place, or rather much closer to a good one. Closer to pulling her way out of a multi-year rut. She was applying herself, her focus, her talented mind and its seemingly endless abilities.

Max woke slowly and rolled, pushed - _the now bright red-haired, angry and fiery for all the softness that had come home to roost_ \- Chloe away, trying in vain to leave the bed. She fell back down into giggles and laughter when Chloe reached up to grab her, kissing and tickling at all the bare skin that she could reach. The moment stretched out, and Max let it be, let the kisses deepen, let the feeling of hands on her body spread out, away, nails scratching as a palm cupped the curve of her hip, her breast. She pushed and pressed herself against Chloe, let the woman peel off her sleep clothes, let her taste whatever she wanted.

These moments weren’t exactly rare, but she still treasured them all. 

Chloe seemed to concur, rumbling from deep in her throat as she dipped two fingers inside Max’s core, moaning deep, teeth biting into a soft earlobe. Max - _eventually_ \- came, riding her high and flushed so profoundly red that Chloe couldn’t even resist from breaking the moment by calling her - _sweetly, with no genuine teasing_ \- a tomato.

As Max dressed for the day she let her mind wander, and in the corner of the room, Maxine sulked, still visible beneath the shadows and blue eyes running red.

\---

Max revised her declaration. Life was _hard._

But she loved it. 

Five years was an accomplishment. She savoured every moment of that one. Graduation, a degree to her name, a job lined up. Another partner in her life; Chloe hadn’t even been against it. It was five years, and it was two years.

Victoria was still as awkward as she’d ever been, despite the grace and poise and money she’d used to cover it up. There was love between them all, enough to go around. Enemies to friends, eventually to lovers. A trajectory that had been anything other than straightforward. A last-minute transfer to avoid her family’s wishes, their presence, their money that bought her everything but what she needed.

Now they were here, Chloe and Max, celebrating the day away while VIctoria gave them space. She was happy with them both, happy even to remain alone as they lived through it. The day had been long, the night was still young, and the cloying taste of too-rich wine on her tongue had led Max back to water. The feeling of Chloe’s hand intertwined within her own was enough to get her off her seat and moving, out towards the kitchen, the living room, the balcony; lights of a burgeoning city lit her face as she gazed into a living maelstrom. 

A new job was lined up, and she’d be celebrating that soon. But this moment - _just this one and no other, not now and not ever, no redo and no do-over_ \- was for Chloe and love. 

She claimed a kiss, wrapped her arms around Chloe’s neck and let herself hang, pressed tightly until they were just one person. Sparks lit behind her heart, her eyes, as she proclaimed her love again, and again. Forever and a day, and back again so long as she still could.

Butterflies were imprinted in her skin now, her arms, stark blue on pale skin, bright underneath the cast-off light of neon signs. A kiss, a smile, Chloe was whispering all of it back in different, harsher words.

Max watched as Maxine laughed at her, hidden by night atop an adjoining roof, hoodie slipping off her shoulders.

\---

Victoria would never tire of being asked to pose. One arm thrust into the air, palm spread wide, her face turned away and a brightness to her stance that Max treasured.

_Click-Whir._

A decade was a long, long time. Max had never imagined that her first love could go on for so long, nor her second - _though no less important_ \- love. Victoria held a sharpness that Chloe lacked; the once-punk was as abrasive as the sandpaper she worked with; Victoria was brittle, liable to shatter under a cold hand; Chloe was easy and slow, laid back no matter the circumstances; the once-bully was as sharp as a knife and quick to be used in defence of those she loved.

Victoria was loud whenever she got drunk, and Max loved that too. She carried so much reservation in her day to day life, despite years passing by and no one around for her to measure up to, to top - _unless Chloe asked meekly, from her position at the foot of the bed_ \- or stomp into the ground. She still believed she had so much to atone for, and she carried that awareness with her always. She had so much energy that she _hummed._ Her skin buzzed, her mouth watered. Electric touches and sharp bites. But Victoria could also be soft, a dork, and perfectly quirky in bed or public. She had an ease in social situations that Max lacked, and no desire to hide it. Victoria was simply _Victoria,_ and she was never anyone else.

Max loved her. Chloe loved her.

Victoria loved them in her little, differing ways.

A single motion brought Victoria out of her pose as Max set down her camera. She hooked her fingers into the woman’s waistband, tugged and pressed, let her tongue drag up a warm line against Victoria’s throat, the angles of her chin, her lips. Victoria _hated_ that, but she hated it in the way that she hated talking about anime or her figurine collections. She hated it as performance, loved it underneath the bravado, and soon enough they were both bare, naked against the floor, and Max deftly buried her tongue deep inside her wife.

They switched, and came, again and again as if the night would stay young forever. 

Somewhere, far away from Max’s eyes, Maxine cried and hid her face.

\---

They lived. 

Simply, thoughtfully, they lived.

\---

Fifty years. Five decades. Half a century.

Three children, all of them adopted and loved with all the heart that their parents could give, and all of them off now with their own lives and futures to lead.

There were no more butterflies. There were never any tornados. No more here, or there, or back again. No mysteries for them to uncover.

Just them, their lives. Their _life._

Chloe fell off to sleep, and Max watched her go with teary eyes. She had managed to put off this moment for so long, and yet she remembered the first as if it were yesterday. Perhaps, in some way, it was. So long ago, and yet so very fresh.

There was no way to forestall this. Bullets could be rewound. Cancer could not.

Max cried, heavy and ugly, and Victoria did her best to hold onto all the fading pieces. 

Maxine watched them from an alcove, closer than she’d been in years.

\---

Sixty-three full years. Their bodies were old and rheumatic, their minds sharp, their photo albums full.

They were slow, and Max laughed at it whenever Victoria brought it up. There was a creak in her bones and her heart, and Max knew - _at the moment she awoke, the world turned off and over_ \- that something was off when she opened her eyes, minutes having passed with them closed and hidden. Her daughter, now an older woman as well, stood beside her with tears in her eyes.

A trip to the hospital, a whispered last goodbye.

The memories were a cavalcade, an unending stream. The desire to find a photograph, just one, just fucking _one,_ and do it all again.

Maxine sat next to her on the couch where she’d pledged her love to Chloe, to Victoria. The couch where she’d given life to art, to family, to herself. A simple bundle of cloth and wood and metal, set within a simple room well furnished, but polite. Looking around simply brought up images of a shared past, and Maxine was an intrusion in this place.

Her presence said that Max _could_ if she wanted to. She could find that picture and follow through with it. Arthritis had claimed her hands, but when she pulled, she could still feel that resistance. Time was still there; it was just as comfortable a presence as it had been when she was young, and the world had seemed so terrifying.

But Max never wavered. Maxine never aged. Time never stopped flowing, and for that, there were no abrupt endings. Just one long, slow decline. A slope accompanied by the ghost of all her anger, her unjust rage at the world being denied beauty. She’d changed it once, for the better, but would not do so again.

It would be too selfish, she knew, and Chloe had voiced her own opinion on the matter before her final passing.

Time marched on, and then one morning, there was nothing.

Darkness, gentle, a feeling of numbness spreading through her limbs, her torso, her heart and mind.

There was a butterfly in this void, brilliantly blue and dancing on invisible currents of wind. Max followed her, wondering at that bliss, the heat, the blossoming youth overcoming all her features as the years fell away. Max followed that thing, that Goddess, whatever it was.

At the end of her travels was a girl much like her, obviously waiting, grinning so full that Max’s heart burned with love. She was blue-haired and lightly jumping from foot to foot, the clothing she wore all faded and distressed, cut and scraped, three bullets hanging down by a thin length of twine. Beside her stood another young woman, blonde hair and too-chic clothes, a predatory smile and wonder in her eyes.

Max faded as she followed them, sprinting away to a place that Maxine could never find.

And Maxine remained, crying, silent, fading into the nothing she had always been, red eyes staring into the void.


End file.
